Most of you who live in and around Norman know about Lake Thunderbird State Park, however, the new Nature Center is still a best-kept secret. I'm here to tell you that this state park and lake is a jewel crowned off by the beauty of the new nature center. Kathy Furneaux and her core of maintenance personnel worked long hours to get the new quarters ready for the official opening last Friday morning.

The opening of the center was attended by a number of prominent people who were connected with the park in some way such as State Sen. Jonathan Nichols whose senate district includes the park area and Rep. Bill Nations who has taken his family and grandchildren to the lake area for many years. Three generations of the Wallace Collins family, whose roots run deep in central Oklahoma, have enjoyed the area even before Lake Thunderbird was completed in 1965.

Also in attendance were representatives from Friends of Lake Thunderbird organization, members of the Absentee Shawnee Indian Tribe, who used to live on the land the park and lake took, members of the original Corps of Army Engineers who planned and oversaw the construction of the dam and others.

Each year more people visit or camp at Thunderbird than any other state park, it's an urban oasis surrounded by densely populated cities and small communities. The new Nature Center building is north of the Clear Bay entrance to the park, 13 miles east on State Highway 9 and 142nd Avenue SE, then one-half mile north of the intersection next to the lake. The phone number is 321-4633.

The park has approximately 1,874 land acres, 6,000 water surface acres and some 86 miles of shoreline. It is the major source of lake water for the cities of Norman, Midwest City and Del City. The lake is divided into two major sections: Clear Bay and Indian Point. Indian Point, 11 miles east of Norman on Alameda, 13101 Alameda Drive. For information e-mail thunderbird@otrd.state.ok.us.

Activities at the park can be as simple as a serene walk through the woods or along the shore, to overnight tent camping or parking the R.V. Also available are two hiking trails, a mountain bike trail and one handicap accessible trail. There are picnic sites and group shelters, fishing, boating, water skiing, swimming, riding stables with 33 horses and hayrides. For more information, call 321-5768.

Other activities are limited hunting, deer archery and limited waterfowl, playgrounds, an archery range. The lake offers eight lake huts on shores of the Little Axe Campground. All have heating and air conditioning units, fireplaces -- bring your own bedding and cooking utensils. Call the park for reservations.

Although the lake was built mainly as a water reclamation project, it is a great place to build memories with your children. You'll never have a better opportunity to bond with your children and make wonderful life-long memories by taking them to the park regularly. When our three girls were young we began taking them to Lake Thunderbird every week or so. Often we would plan a cookout at the park late that evening. Before eating, the children would scramble up and down the sandstone outcroppings and wade in the shallow water near the shore looking at the water life and collecting muscle shells. One of their fondest memories, they told me was sharing camp coffee "like an adult" from the large smoke-blackened coffee pot. This was a special treat because they were not allowed to drink coffee at other times. We never told them that their coffee contained twice as much Pet evaporated milk as coffee.

One summer we camped in an old converted school bus near the Little River Bridge where the water was muddy but shallow. The children spent endless hours building castles in the mud -- it wasn't very sandy there -- but one of the children who bit her nails since starting school, stopped completely during those two weeks. She was so happy and content just sitting in the water playing in the mud.

At other times we hiked the trails looking for mushrooms in spring, hickory nuts in the fall and always the girls ran and jumped the little gullies that worked their way down to the water, whooping and hollering. Lifelong memories are made of such simple things as these.

For the park office/information center -- there are two major areas -- Clear Bay and Indian Point.

Upcoming events: Friends of Lake Thunderbird State Park will hold this month's meetings 7 p.m. Tuesday. Guests are welcome to attend these meetings. Pat Folley will be guest speaker, her topic is "Native Wildflowers."

The Friends of Lake Thunderbird is a nonprofit, all-volunteer organization interested in creating community activities and supporting projects that benefit the community and our state park. Dues are $10 per year for individuals and $15 per year for families. Lifetime and business memberships also are available. All money is used for projects and events in the State Park. For more information, call the Nature Center at 321-4633. If there is no answer, leave a message.

Betty Culpepper may be reached at bculpepper3@cox.net for comments, questions or ideas for future columns.